1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to media content, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for browsing (or viewing) media content and executing functions related to the media content.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of a ubiquitous environment, a user's demand for a media content comprised of digital data has increased. The media content may include audio data, image data, moving picture data, text data, 3-Dimensional (3D) data, and the like.
As devices which can store and reproduce media content, for example, an MPEG Layer 3 (MP3) player, a Personal Media Player (PMP), a mobile communication terminal, a personal computer, a notebook computer, and a digital television have increased the capacity of data which they can store, the amount of storable media contents has also been increased and, thus, it has become difficult to manage such media content. Furthermore, such devices reproduce many types of media content rather than one type of a media content, the types and capacity of media content stored on the devices have increased.
Generally, a browser for browsing and searching media content uses a scheme for providing lists of names of media content and brief information about the media content or a scheme for listing thumbnail images related to the media contents.
However, schemes for simply providing only the name lists or listing the related thumbnail images may not interest users and, in any case, cannot accurately transmit information about the media content.
In the case of a browser, used to provide name lists, users may not know the details of the media content by seeing only the names of the media content. For example, if media contents are image files or audio files, it is not easy to accurately distinguish the image files or the audio files by only the file names where there are many other such files stored on a device.
As another example, in the case of a browser listing thumbnail images of image files, files may be distinguished by the thumbnail images but detailed information related to a specific file may not be available as only the thumbnail is shown. Namely, user manipulation should be needed to confirm information about a specific file. Moreover, spaces between the thumbnail images generated when listing the thumbnail images waste space on a display area.